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As the Guardian writesabout the multiple Munchs here today
Reproductions and rip-offs of The Scream often leave out the "background" in their fascination with the weird, ghostly figure - she or he or it. But Munch's nightmare was that seaside scene, the blob of water, the pier veering away, the wavy red bands of fire in the sky, the vortex rush of shore. He depicted this landscape in Despair, in 1892, a year before he painted The Scream, and repeated it in Anxiety in 1894. This abstracted vision of a world cut loose from its moorings is as isolating as the prelude to Tristan und Isolde.
In the same year Munch painted his most famous version of The Scream, now in the National Gallery in Oslo, he painted another, almost identical - and this version was stolen on Sunday. The primary version has also been stolen and recovered, but this time the thieves went to the wrong gallery, and stole the second best Scream.
I'm not sure I am convinced that we should the privilidging of the first variation on the scream as 'the original' - and it would certainly seem that it is subtlely but noticablely different from the scream that seems to have become the most reproduced.
So, to repharse the question - where does the scream lie? in solely in Munch's first iteration of this theme? - withe the reproduced image we are most familiar with being described as Evard Munch's the scream? Or does it exist outside the physical limitations as an idea to be refered to and repeated? |
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